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Saturday, February 10, 2007

Random Nemo and Pirates observations

There's a new (well, three weeks old) merch cart hiding in Future World West, between Character Connection and Innoventions West. It's dedicated only to pirates merchandise, which has about as much to do with Future World's mission as Spider-Man does with global warming. I don't like it. Disney always identifies trends late and then jumps WAY too deeply into them. Just think of how they overkilled "Who Wants to be a Millionaire." They will tire the audience out with this if they aren't careful. Which they aren't being.

Over at Nemo (the Epcot ride, not the DAK musical), there's been damage already. On week two of the attraction, someone had punched a hole in the painted and themed wall near the entrance door. That, I'm pleased to say, got patched up promptly. But at the loading dock a few weeks later, one of the beautiful etched glass "windows" from the queue to the loading belt (it's a knee level and below) has been replaced by a plain board. Apparently it shattered quite badly. I didn't get to hear if this was done maliciously.

What I care about is that it's taking so long to replace this. I do desperately hope they ARE replacing it...

Now then, the other Nemo observation: while I like this ride a lot, it occurred to me right from the beginning that the characterizations and motivations are "off" somewhat. Think about it: the storyline here is that Nemo has run away "again". Let's forget for a moment that Nemo didn't run away in the movie, and let's focus on Nemo hiding just out of sight for several scenes in this ride, and giggling like a kid getting away with something. In short, the designers made him an undisciplined brat in this ride. That's not the Nemo we knew in the movies. Nemo was many things, but a "playful jerk" wasn't one of them. Yet this drives the whole action of the ride.

I could go on. Just how does Bruce know Nemo's name? Why should Nemo listen to Crush rather than all other characters, and finally return home? Why do we see Nemo, Marlin, and Dory TWICE at the end, as projections on two different scenes? But mostly I'm annoyed that Nemo is basically out of character.